Ubuntu is under attack (longish)

[Mike Bird]

On Sun, 2005-12-18 at 20:08, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> Ubuntu has shown that less is more.
> 
> In a year this distro has gone from nothing to being one of the
> top-ranked versions of Linux, while eschewing the kitchen sink
> philosophy inherent in the likes of RedHat/Fedora Core. It provides
> what is needed to get most people's job done. Nothing more. Nothing
> less.

Please Eric, check your facts.  One of our reasons for switching
from Fedora to Ubuntu was because Ubuntu has more, not less:

   Fedora Core 4             1794 packages
   Fedora Extras 4           1858 packages

   Ubuntu 5.10 Main          4036 packages
   Ubuntu 5.10 Restricted      34 packages
   Ubuntu 5.10 Universe     13224 packages
   Ubuntu 5.10 Multiverse     469 packages

Those are the latest figures from our mirror.  Others may
disagree but not by much.

Now Debian/Ubuntu packages are finer-grained, particularly for
libraries, but there's still overwhelmingly more included in
Ubuntu.

Another key reason why we switched was because Fedora abandoned
LILO while Ubuntu allowed us to install a sensible starting
configuration on the first pass.  Little did we suspect that
Ubuntu would be downgraded in Breezy to discard system emails!

I *confidently* predict that if Ubuntu follows Fedora's dumbing
down strategy that Ubuntu's ratings will follow Fedora's too.

--Mike Bird